Lustration Law Cannot Distance Us From The Past

The thing that makes the biggest impression in the latest debate on the Lustration Law is the fact that it being presented to a far lesser degree as a social concern. Of course this is not the first time, or will it be the last, that fundamental debates played out in public, have very little or nothing to do with the public, which is being reduced more and more to an indifferent spectator in the face of debates conductedŮ.on its behalf!! However what strikes the eye in this case is the insistence of the political or media players or factors to draw society into a debate from which it is being left out increasingly, not necessarily because there is a lack of a social desire for a divorce with the past, but because the Lustration Law highlights the fact that this is impossible with the political actors we have today.
Today, in 2009 it is very hard for Albanian society to believe that its divorce from the communist past could be carried out by the leader of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, who remains one of the major products of that past on our political scene, clearly reflected in what has been “overlooked” in this law, such as the former secretaries of the Party of Labour. Therefore, Berisha’s calls to break away from the past have a very empty ring to them, especially today, especially for a generation who will vote for the first time in 2009 and who have never lived a single day under communism. For this generation, these calls to break away from the past, hollow calls from that past itself are absolutely meaningless.
It is even doubtful that those who were severely persecuted by the communist regime, by its prosecutors and judges, who are still components of our ‘justice” system, would believe that the Lustration Law is the dividing line with the past. Not because this “division” coincidently means the elimination of a handful of judges and/or prosecutors who are currently investigating cases involving members of the government. But because this law, from the way it has been drafted, from the way it is being protected, and judging from the way it is being contested, from the EU to the United States, it appears that there is definitely a given target: that this law is not going to be implemented.
The DP is so interested in divorcing itself from the past that it has produced a law which provides it with every opportunity not to implement it, ever. With its failure, not only will this law never purge our justice system of elements of our communist past, but there is a danger that it will project this past into the future. And this would not be the first time that the anti-communism of the DP merely serves to legitimize the former communists on the political stage today. Let’s recall here the anti-genocide law which the DP passed prior to the elections of 1996. The consequences of that law, together with all the Democrat anti-communism, were nothing other than the legitimization of former communists prominent on the 1997 political scene.
In both cases laws are produced, which more than a break away from the past, are designed to solve the problems of the Executive in the present. This is why it is very difficult for this law to arouse any interest or enthusiasm, even amongst those who were persecuted the most by the communist regime. So, imagine how much interest this law could arouse among the other strata of society, who, far more than a break away from the past, are only interested in the priority of surviving in the present.
In these conditions, the actors and players involved in the debate over the Lustration Law, more than social concern are articulating personal or institutional concern. Through the Lustration Law, the United States of America is expressing its concern for the judiciary and dissatisfaction with Berisha, irrespective of the fact that persecutors of the past still lurk in its folds.
As always, the EU is reducing a profoundly political issue to a profoundly legal issue. It is of little importance to the EU that there is a historical and social dimension to this issue.
The SP, which has neither the desire nor the interest to purge the judiciary of its communist hangovers, is worried about the concern of the EU and the USA, while the real worry of the government are the judges and the prosecutors, and far less, the divorce with the past. In other words, the Lustration Law is actually dividing up the different political players and factors, but not the Albanian society from its communist past. In the face of this law, indifference is bringing Albanian society together even more.